The moment your eyes are open, you should reach for your phone and call the Flight Information centre to see if the flight for your first meet & greet of the day is still scheduled to arrive on time. If it's early, best you jump out of bed and 'fly' to the airport.

The airport office is usually abuzz at this time of the morning getting ready for the crazy day ahead - one day is never the same and each day is an adventure!

On arrival in the international arrivals terminal, work your way (politely) through the maddening crowd and find yourself a spot in the front where your passengers can see you. If any of the other people meeting & greeting scold you for standing in front of them, just pretend you don't speak English - it always works! Hold your meet & greet name board high and keep your eyes peeled for any clues as to who your guests might be.

Once your guests present themselves to you, give them our famous warm South African welcome and assist them away from the crowd. Now is your opportunity to hand over their carefully prepared travel documents and assist them with any queries or questions that they may have with regard to their arrangements. Once you are satisfied that your guests are happy, assist them to their next service and send them on their way. Now you can rush back to your previous position in the crowd and get ready to meet your next clients.

By midday you may be seeing your last guest safely to their transfer or assisting them to their car hire. Thereafter you high-heel it to the office and do some reports and other office administration - everyone has to help with the admin as we all look after each other in our team!

Teamwork - without it, we wouldn't survive!

It's time to make a few phone calls to your guests in their hotels to setup some hotel visits. The hotel visits will be your golden moment to meet and really get to know your guests. That said and done, the afternoon is yours to do as you wish! Grab a bite to eat, pop into a museum or take a SIESTA!

As you walk into the hotel lobby, it's exactly 4:30pm and all the hotel staff who know you very well by now, are waving to say hi. Within a few moments, Mr & Mrs Brown arrive and sit down with you with their list of inquiring questions. You feel great to be able to share your wonderful wealth of knowledge on South Africa and they listen intently. The cherry on the cake is the 4 day tours that you sell them! They are ecstatic and excited !! and you, are about to make your way out of the hotel because there is a Gateway group restaurant visit that you need to get to - can't keep the Tour Leader waiting!

Phew! You got to the restaurant just before the group arrived - of course you made it look as though you have been waiting patiently for hours. The group sits down to dinner and you and the tour leader sit down to have a chat about how the group tour is going. This time round, there seems to be a lot of small issues and you make note of them in your notepad so that you can advise the operations team in Durban to fix them ASAP! This makes us look really snappy!

Okay it's 6:45pm .... I think we can call it a day and have some time out! You are relieved! But more than that, you have that 'feel good' feeling because you were able to make the first day of so many guests that arrived in SA, a less stressful and more comfortable day! Well done!